The committee has been working on the development of the committee purpose, vision and ops manual. We also made awards as they were received.
Through this report, PDTAC refers to the Professional Development & Travel Awards Committee.
The committee awarded Dorthy & Moses Passar Education Grants this spring. We received four applications and funded two of those applications. We worked with the executive assistant to publicize these awards on the DivCHED website. We need to add a note about Annette Raigoza whose report was received on 4/20/2026 to the website. Annette Raigoza was awarded $569 to attend the Art and Artifact Handling + Examination Tools and Condition Assessment workshop through Midwest Art Conservation Center. The profesional development workshop focused on basics of handling art, specific materials challenges, lifting objects that might be more complicated, some hands-on practice, tools that could aid in examining art, the basics of reporting the condition of a piece of artwork. the goal is to bring these new techniques into advanced laboratory experiences for her students.
We worked with the Executive Assistant to put out announcements for the available Dorthy & Moses Passar Education Grants and Travel Awards.
The report for Scott Simpson was also received and a summary has been shared on the DivCHED website.
One of the non funded awards was for BCCE travel which is not part of Passer but contributed to conversations about expanding the Travel award descriptions beyond the Spring ACS. The other non funded award did not seem like a formal professional develop activity.
We brought forward changes to membership to the Committee on Personnel and Nominations committee.
We met several times to work on mission, vision and operations manual for PDTAC. While the Dorthy & Moses Passar Education Grants funding allowances are defined based on the original donor descriptions, we propose a broader use for "Travel Award" funds beyond the Spring ACS Meeting. We propose changing language to calling it a Professional Development & Travel Award, and we envision funding a larger variety of opportunities like the Spring and Fall National ACS Meetings, Regional ACS Meetings, BCCE Meetings, and other chemical education meetings and professional development opportunities with consideration for virtual options.
We are bringing forth proposals for budget changes to the finance committee in July, and we will bring forward proposals for changes in Purpose and Vision to the Executive Committee at the Fall meeting. We will also share some organizational components from our operations manual at that meeting.
The Travel Award is part of the DivCHED budgetting, and the Dorthy & Moses Passar Education Grants are based on a foundation account so no additional requests were needed.
The Co-Chair, Raul Rodriguez, will be presenting a short proposal for changes to PDTAC purpose and vision which will be included in our updated operations manual.
The DivCHED Treasurer, Rick Moog, will be bringing a short proposal to the Finance Committee to consider changes in budget total and award limits for both Dorthy & Moses Passar Education Grants and for Professional Development & Travel Awards.